Friday, January 18, 2008

Distorted opinions

This week has been Stephin Merritt mania! First I wrote a fairly standard review of the new Magnetic Fields album Distortion for Playback:STL, which was published earlier in the week here. Then, deciding that wasn't enough, I wrote an entirely new essay (and I do mean essay) and more than doubled my word count for the Post-Rockist, including audio, in this new post. So don't think I haven't been writing lately; I have been. Just not here so much. Keep up!

The new album is a huge change, but it's caused me to go back and listen to their back catalogue all over again. Here's a brief selection of some favorites I found on video. The boys at Better Chatter have posted their own Stephin Merritt playlist worth checking out if you still have any money left on your iTunes gift cards leftover from Xmas.

"Born on a Train"



"With Whom to Dance"



"All the Umbrellas in London"

2 comments:

Josh said...

Very nice, Todd. I didn't know you were already writing for St. Louis papers. Pretty impressive that you got hooked into the scene there so fast!

Todd said...

Thanks, Josh, although it's not technically the local paper. I think Playback:Stl used to be a print magazine that focused on local St. Louis arts & entertainment things, but it's since expanded its scope and is exclusively online. Apparently they have a large readership in Australia. Who knew?